Alcatel-Lucent has launched a technical test of the DVB-SH system at 2.2GHz in the S-band. The pilot is taking place in South West France using the 3G mobile infrastructure of the Vodafone-owned SFR. It is scheduled to continue through until September.
DVB-SH has been designed to deliver video, audio and data services to handheld devices over hybrid satellite and terrestrial networks. The specification was approved by the DVB Steering Board earlier this year and will shortly be published as a standard by ETSI.
The broadcast signals will use low power terrestrial repeaters co-located with existing 3G sites. The broadcast signal will use a high altitude helicopter that will emulate the satellite. Sagem and Samsung have supplied mobile receivers.
